Intel set to get inside your TV, your life

Eric Kim, senior vice-president and general manager of Intel Corporation's Digital Home Group, is the man tasked with the $115-billion chip-maker���s next big thing: home entertainment. He wants to bring the power and richness of the Internet to TV, yet keeping it simple. Widely credited as the mind behind Brand Samsung ��� he was an executive VP at the Korean firm ��� Kim believes TV is about the overall entertainment experience and not just the device, the contours of which are radically changing. Talking to ET on the sidelines of the recently concluded Intel Developer���s Forum 2009 in San Francisco, Kim says emerging markets like India are key for Intel���s new venture. Excerpts:

The Television that we all grew up with was a one-way device... How much has it changed so far, and what���s the future like?

The biggest change in recent years has been the shift toward users wanting their content at the time of their choosing. There are multiple approaches they are taking to satisfy this desire: DVRs on-demand via their Pay TV provider and via over-the-top Internet video sites. In the future, we expect the Internet to cause a dramatic increase in the content options that consumers can choose from.

Another emerging change is how content is being monetised. Advertisers are demanding more accountability for their advertising spends. This is making advertisers move their spending to online options. However, for demand creation and brand building, television advertising is still the best medium. In the coming years, we expect Internet connectivity to these devices to deliver more relevant and effective advertising ��� even letting users to directly purchase items via the television.

Is consumer electronics the future of Intel? How much of a share do you see your digital home division commanding in total the Intel revenues in the coming years?

It is definitely part of our future. While it���s too early to predict what our market segment share will be, we do expect it to be a major area of growth for the company. As far as how much of that will come from India, the great thing about television is it���s the most pervasive screen in people���s lives around the world. We see emerging markets as being a huge opportunity since the TV is often one of the first purchases that households make as their income rises. With Internet capabilities on the TV, even households who don���t yet have a PC will be able to get much of the educational and socio-economic value the Internet has to offer.

Whether it be HD, blue-ray or 3D, it all requires systemic jumps in processing power, and that���s where companies such as Intel comes in. But it is important to have a level of consistency in application architecture. What is Intel doing about that?

You bring up a very good point, the consumer electronics (CE) industry doesn���t have the common software foundation that exists in the PC world. For the real software-based innovation to materialise, one or more common and open software foundations are needed. Using Linux as a foundation, Intel and its ISV partners are working to solve this problem. One great example is our joint announcement with Adobe at IDF that we are delivering a hardware optimised Flash 10 environment for CE.

���TV is out of the box and off the wall,��� this was a statement one often heard at IDF 2009. Could you explain what Intel means by this?

This was a quote from Justin Rattner (Intel CTO) in his IDF keynote speech. It means that the future of television is about the experience of watching TV and the overall entertainment experience, not just the device. This entertainment experience is migrating to all the devices in our lives and Intel is enabling it across all of our platforms from the PC, to the television, to mobile devices. We���ve already seen this beginning to happen with the popularity of watching TV on the PC and mobile devices. In the future, we see this expanding and having much more meaning for consumers.

Are we anywhere near a seamless 3D experience in the living room?

From a technology standpoint, stereoscopic 3D is a reality and the costs of creating this content are coming down fast. The biggest challenge is really a social problem: do consumers want to wear 3D glasses in their living room? Our research indicates that a reasonable subset of consumers are willing to wear them for certain types of content. Over time, we expect consumers to increasingly want the level of immersion that 3D provides.

At the same time, we also expect that advances in auto-stereoscopic technology will enable 3D to become mainstream. That being said, the industry appears to be moving fast to create products that support 3D content, so for those consumers who want it, it should become a reality in the next couple of years.